Best of Nela Dunato’s Articles & Videos
Hello and welcome, I’m so glad you’re here!
I’ve curated some of the most popular and time-tested articles on this page so you can easily find those that are most useful to you right now. There’s more than 200 free articles and videos on my blog.
Brand Strategy
- Take the quiz: What stage is your brand in?
- Human Centered Branding: Filling the Gap between Personal & Corporate Branding
- Who the Hell needs “branding”? Here’s how to get noticed, your way.
- Easy & Free Brand Health Check for Your Service Business
- Struggling with your brand strategy? Start here.
- How to brand your business on a budget
- Hyperfocused vs. holistic brand: which one is better for you?
- Why you can’t separate “business” and “personal” – Introduction to Core Values
- 6 branding myths that may be holding back your business
- Branding is a journey, not a one-off project
- Can great branding really help you earn more money?
Graphic Design
- Top 11 Easy-to-fix Beginner Design Mistakes (with visual examples)
- 5 Rules of Elegant Logo Design
- Is your logo sending the right message?
- My logo & brand identity design process explained
- One logo design concept, one revision: why this method works
- How to encourage constructive design feedback (video)
- The difference between the $100 logos, $1.000 logos and $10.000 logos
- My Design Philosophy
- Branding guidelines (style guides) demystified
- Beginner’s Guide to Visual Design Services
- 6 signs you need a new logo (and the story of my logo redesign)
Marketing
- Marketing is an art form: Creative rebel’s guide to self-promotion
- How can selling services be easy?
- Stop chasing clients: 4 effective alternatives to cold pitching
- It’s all about who you know
- How to know when to quit a marketing practice
- How to be a remarkable blogger and attract loyal readers
- 26 creative ways to share your individuality online
- My best tip: how to never miss a weekly blog post
- People over numbers (and why I’ll never have pop-ups on my website)
Small Business Tips
- Nela’s ultimate list of 34 freelancing tips
- How to get clients to see you as an expert
- Real friends pay full price
- If you love your work, charge more.
- Creative professionals: design your client process
- My journey of self-publishing a non-fiction book (4-part series)
- Dream Clients: Myth or Reality?
- 15 ways to infuse creativity into your boring business tasks
- Top 10 things you can do when your creative business is slow
- How to bring back the passion – 5 key conditions for fulfilling creative work
- Turning down client work when you really need the money
- My complete list of creative, business & productivity tools
- The Ethical Impact of Your Creative Business
- How to stand out through exceptional client service
Productivity & Wellbeing
- How to reduce communication overwhelm in your service business
- Dealing with creative burnout
- A simple tip for better creative productivity
- My Top 5 Tips For Preventing Time Suck & Increasing Productivity
- How to overcome information addiction
- The real reason you suck at planning
- Productivity Tips from a Hopeless Procrastinator
- 5 ways to use meditation as a productivity technique
- Mind Detox Retreat — A Cure For Burnout And Overload
- How to handle a crazy influx of ideas and keep them organized
Mindset
- Devoted to wholeness instead of pursuing success
- What will people think? 10 steps to overcoming your fear of visibility
- The Meaning of Failure
- The right-brained lie and the false creative-logical divide
- On being in the Process
- How to overcome Resistance: A visual metaphor
- Maybe you’re not meant to be a specialist
- Find your own answers & solve problems through journaling
Creativity & Art
- Creativity in digital isolation
- How to balance personal & commercial creative work
- Doorways of inspiration
- Stop comparing your art to others
- How to deal with online art theft
- The challenge of (re)starting a creative practice
- What’s in your creative wellness toolbox?
- How to take great sketchbook photos
- Artist’s guide to designing attractive blog images
- Why I Think Every Visual Creative Should Keep A Sketchbook (+ Video sketchbook flip)
- Art & creativity for mental health & wellbeing
My Creative Process (step by step)
- Nela’s Art Chat series of process videos (drawing & painting)
- The making of “Santa Muerte” photomanipulation
- Painting process video: Making of “Nourishing Heart”
- Aqua Lady sketching process video
- Step by step hand-lettering process: “Moonlight”
- How I paint skin tones in acrylic
- Hand lettering process: “Everything is an art project”
Want even more? Hop over to my blog archive.